What's going on?

So here's the story so far.....Saints appoint Jan Poortvliet (JP) as manager at the start of the season and we play good football and on occasions (Birmingham in the Carling Cup) play really good football.

Then it all starts to go wrong and as Steve Claridge (ex-Pompey football pundit) put it "they play great football in the middle of the pitch but can't defend or score goals!" Slowly we have sunk down the Championship and now reside one spot off the bottom. Last game we lost 2-1 at home to Doncaster (!) and the fans started fighting amongst themselves. Most fans want Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde off of the board and JP had lost the fans support as well, mainly due to one home victory all season.

Last Friday, a couple of days after a board meeting, from which he appeared to emerge unscathed, JP resigned.  I'm sad to see him go but he had in reality only made things worse, despite, for a short time, playing the best football we had seen for a few years. 

The board took no time at all to replace him with Mark Wotte (in the photo he's on the right, JP on the left). He was the Academy Director and Reserve team manager and appears the cheap option as we have no money.

Two things may be relevant. One, we did look at Wotte as manager, before George Burley, so maybe he was who we wanted all along? Secondly Wotte's first action was to appoint Michael Svensson as part of his back room staff. 

It's likely that things will get no better, but hope springs eternal. 

Meanwhile Spurs and Pompey both went out the FA Cup this weekend and Nathan Dyer, on loan to Swansea, scored the first goal against Pompey. In these small things we find joy.